Harvard Law Student Is A Twit, But Possibly Not An Anti-Semitic Twit

The font of innumerable Supreme Court Justices, its students are capable of a sort of conscious, plodding self-seriousness that would make a performance artist soil herself. Important things are treated stupidly and stupid things are treated importantly and everywhere there are reminders that law is a cold-iron tool, usable for both good and evil. Even revolutionaries wear the cloak of pedantic legalism, as when protesters occupy a public space and then hold votes by "plenary committees" to determine what expression is permitted there. Bad parodies of the rule of law are often effective cloaks for lawlessness.

Maybe it was this stultifying formalism that led a law student to act — if you believe his explanation — like an eight-year-old in public. The Harvard Program on Negotiation held a presentation called "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the U.S.: Negotiation Lessons and Possibilities." One participant was Tzipi Livni, Israel's former Foreign Minister. A Harvard Law School student used the question and answer period to make an articulate argument that Harvard's invitation of Livni endorsed Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians, and that more debate was needed on the very premises of the discussion at hand.

No, just kidding. The student, a leader in the Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine group, called her smelly.

With regards to what I actually did say, I can see now, after speaking with the authors of this article and many other members of the Jewish community at HLS, how my words could have been interpreted as a reference to an anti-Semitic stereotype, one that I was entirely unaware of prior to the publication of this article. I want to be very clear that it was never my intention to invoke a hateful stereotype, but I recognize now that, regardless of my intention, words have power, and it troubles me deeply to know that I have caused some members of the Jewish community such pain with my words.

The young man's apology isn't "I'm sorry that Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation, which attempts to increase discourse and awareness about how difficult problems can be resolved through discourse, invited a former foreign minister and I reacted by calling her smelly to signify what a bold revolutionary and deep thinker I am." It's more "sorry that you thought that my use of a classic anti-Semitic trope was anti-Semitic instead of just, you know, being a smirking dick."

Thanks for that.

Young Smelly McListofDemands assures us that some of his best friends are (odor unspecified) Jews:

Many members of the Jewish community—some of whom hold strong differences of opinion with me—have reached out to me on their own to let me know that they did not interpret my words as anti-Semitic, because they know me well enough to know that that is not at all consistent with who I am as a person. I want to thank them and any others who have given me the benefit of the doubt, and I am writing this note in the hopes that more of you will do the same.

This is, in fact, perfectly credible. Some of the student's online defenders have indicated that they are Jews and that — because they know him — they thought his intent was not to invoke an ethnic slur. One HLS student explained the thinking behind the word, which the student himself did not:

To quickly summarize, the student told me he said "smelly" to protest Livni's presence without legitimizing the event with a real question

If that's his thinking, it — and the defense of it — seem perfectly childish and imbecilic. A person with something worthwhile to say could articulate why they think Harvard's invitation of Livini was objectionable or illegitimate. A mere insult doesn't suggest she's illegitimate; if anything it makes her seem more legitimate by suggesting her critics have no arguments. The same online defender wrung her hands that criticism of his actions might deter people from speaking out in favor of the oppressed — a "your criticism silences me" trope that is familiar but equally foolish.

Did this guy mean to insult an Israeli leader with an anti-Semitic trope? I don't know. He seems a little dim if he didn't mean it that way; "odor" tropes are commonly used against all sorts of ethnic groups. But even if he didn't mean it, he's a punk and an embarrassment to the school, as the Dean's irritated reaction aptly suggested. He does not convey to me "Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine has things to say and I should listen to them." He conveys "Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine is led by a self-indulgent little douche who richly deserves every excruciating second of the soul-crushing BigLaw job he'll probably get effortlessly because he's a Harvard twerp."

I haven't named the unserious twerp in question. [Edited to add: now that the Harvard Law Record has, I have. He's Husam El-Qoulaq.] It's easy to identify him if you want. I don't think he's worth it, and I think he has a hope of becoming a not-twerp. His supporters have very fervently asked that he not be named. I didn't not-name him because of that; I didn't name him in spite of it. I would note that if he used such a slur about just about any other ethnic group but Jews, he'd be doxxed within hours by the Harvard community. All ethnic slurs are not created equal in the hierarchy of outrage. I also think that if he weren't a bien-pensant — someone with the approved viewpoints about the approved things, including Israel — he'd be loudly condemned by name by the Harvard Law community even if he offered the same explanation. But if his apologists want to order their moral lives that way, that's on them, not on me.

My favourite part is that there is now no other way to criticize an idiot for smearing poop on the walls in front of a guest than calling him "racist" for doing it.
I guess that's what you get when asking students to not act insane is considered oppressive, and the only moderation tools they consider valid are accusations of privilege and unforgivable *isms.

Meanwhile "student" is sitting in his dorm, smugly thinking "joke's on them, I was only pretending to be retarded!"

Too many people lose sight of the fact that, whatever their cause or argument, 60-90% of the audience is composed neither of allies nor opponents, but of unpersuaded or ignorant people. You win by convincing this silent majority of the correctness of your point of view, and you lose by making them think your side is composed of assholes, morons, feckless idealists, or something else that can/should be disregarded.

And unless you are arguing out of some narcissistic impulse toward performance art, convincing the majority to back you so you can achieve real-world effects that help your cause is THE ONLY appropriate goal to strive toward. There is no room in arguments for self-expression at the cost of losing the argument.

"It's how they avoid being called racist for all the other racist crap they say, so why not this?"

You ask this as if it's not an argument they regularly make in all seriousness.

Per the Usual Suspects, Jews are now considered "white people" (don't tell Stormfront, et al), and (along with Asians and East Indians) are also not a "minority", despite being only 2.2% of the population.[1] (When someone asks "Why are there so few minorities in the tech industry?", for example, you can't count Jews. Or Asians. Or East Indians.)

[1]Or 0.2% of the global population — one fifth of one percent. Muslims are 23% of the global population. But guess which is more likely to be classed as a "minority" in terms of the Great Hierarchy Of Intertextual Oppression?

A person with something worthwhile to say could articulate why they think Harvard's invitation of Livini was objectionable or illegitimate.

Well, to play devil's advocate, if audience members could only ask questions since it was a question & answer session, then that makes it a lot harder. Still, that person could have made the question "Why are you such a horrible person?", which would have gotten the point across a lot better.

It's amazing to me that the focus is on what the student indirectly subjectively meant to imply using code words about a group of people, whether it be Jews, females, or female Jews, instead of the specific and clearly identifiable insult directed at the specific and clearly identifiable person sitting in the same room.

My head hurts from reading between the lines, but thank you for making it easier for me.

It's mercy that this kid isn't named-and-shamed. And, I think, proper. The modern movement to publicly shame normal people who happen to have the Eye Of Sauron (aka Internet) gaze upon them for a few minutes is bad.

But it should be bad regardless of the people it happens to. Just like we don't want the police to suddenly care about due process and presumption of innocence only when it's one of their own on trial, we don't want to hear about the mercy of being saved from the doxxing et al only when it's someone proper doing it.

The most charitable interpretation of this leaves the student standing as someone who's low enough to comment publicly on a guest speaker's (alleged) odor. Even if the guest speaker actually had body odor that reached to the back of the room, commenting upon it in the Q&A period would be vile behavior.

The speaker DESERVES to be named and shamed, and expelled from any institution that claims any shred of honor. It's a racist, sexist, anti-semitic comment unworthy of any intelligent person. I'd go so far as to say that it ought to be disqualifying for admission to bar exams.

Perhaps it's not QUITE worthy of the death penalty, but it's pretty close.

This is certainly not a comment in support of douchebaggery. I agree with your argument entirely. I just wanted to point out that I've been a Jew for all of my 59 years, and this is the first I've heard of the "smelly Jew" trope.

As Jew baiting goes, I think it's pretty old school, and I'm dubious that our college age douchbag's intent was to air a hateful racial stereotype. I think that was purely "Bonus!"

I struggle to believe that he didn't know it was an ethnic slur. On the list of vacuous insults, "smelly" is low. Stupid is one of the high ones on that list. Even doo-doo head is above merely "smelly". If there'd been a scatalogical reference tied to said smell, I'd be more inclined to think he didn't mean it in the ethnic-slur category. But that of all the stupid insults he could choose, he should choose an uncommon one that has specifically been used against this group, makes me think it's implausible. Not impossible, but implausible. Especially since, as a Hahvahd guy, I'd expect him to be more familiar with history, if only because I (perhaps foolishly?) ascribe a higher general knowledge to Hahvahd students.

The intent of the comment was to publicly shame the speaker. The appropriate punishment is to shame the perpetrator. And suggesting the perpetrator was unaware of the anti-semitism inherent in the comment is an insult to the intelligence of the law students at Harvard.

This might be a generational thing? I went to both a plurality jewish high school and college, and hang out in /pol/ longer than it's admissible in polite company, and I've never seen the "smelly" stereotype come up, I just learned about it reading this article. I guess I'll ask around, just to make sure.

I never said it was a universal experience, because that would have been stupid. There are almost no really universal experiences, and obvious cultural constructs never are.

What I said was that I find it hard to believe he just happened to pick the racist stupid insult, when it is an uncommon stupid insult. None of the people here saying they haven't heard of it are ALSO using it as an insult against a guest speaker at a university. Context matters. In this case the context is that he claims a combination of things occurred: he chose a random bad insult arbitrarily, and chose an uncommon one, and it so happens that one has an anti-semitic history. The combination is what I find implausible.

I find this subject extremely ironic. Does anyone with at least two brain cells connected together think that there is any 'possibility' of any negotiations between Palestinians and Jews?

Or is this just a propaganda ploy? Israeli-Palestinian 'negotiation possibilities', hosted by a Zionist and two Jewish negotiation experts.

Gimme a break. M. Dipstick could have pointed this out, instead of a stupid personal attack. Dippy will have a short (but interesting) career in law. I suggest specializing in negotiation, and (God, Allah, the Lord) forbid, if The Donald becomes President, well… he'll be looking for good people…..
. .. . .. — ….

If we must reserve judgment on whether or not the dude is an anti-semite, can Harvard expel him for his lousy forensic skills? What’s he going to be like in a courtroom? “Your Honor, the Assistant District Attorney is a big fat poopy-head and his mother dresses him funny. The defense rests.”

Hlrecord deleted the posts naming the culprit, but left one in that misleadingly suggested it was a female. Too late! The word is out. And thank you Ken for helping to stir the anthill. This particular loutishness deserved to be aired.

I have had my differences with Comrade Stalin, but I thoroughly approve of his attitude toward this particular opponent of his agricultural policy…

Some other commenters, drawing on their American experience, have expressed doubt that the culprit could have learned and deliberately invoked antisemitic tropes we never heard of. Now that he has been named, however, we are reminded that some parts of the World still harbor such medieval folklore. Not a socially-retarded child, but rather an ancient-school antisemite.

His friends in campus far-Left groups and anti-Israel groups let him down by failing to clue him in about differing US cultural norms. Friends don't let friends drive drunk…

I think you should have named him in the OP. There is ordinary indifference, but "I don't think he's worthy of it" rises to studied indifference, which can be useful to make an impression on an adversary, but who is the adversary on this blog?

By the time you get to be 3L at Harvard, you're preparing to enter the upper echelons of American lawyering, and you should have developed a minimum level of maturity, diplomacy and self-control. This guy made a blatantly antisemitic remark in public to the former foreign minister of the most advanced and nominally allied nation in the Middle East. For the sake of the innocent, unsuspecting future clients, isn't this something that the hiring partner at a law firm should be able to see on the first page of Google results?

That being said, I can't think of any reason why I would stand up before the world and ask a speaker why they smell for any reason other than to be pointlessly pointy, so I find it rather difficult to believe our unnamed protagonist would say so unless they were aware of this connection.

I never said it was a universal experience, because that would have been stupid. There are almost no really universal experiences, and obvious cultural constructs never are.

What I said was that I find it hard to believe he just happened to pick the racist stupid insult, when it is an uncommon stupid insult. None of the people here saying they haven't heard of it are ALSO using it as an insult against a guest speaker at a university. Context matters. In this case the context is that he claims a combination of things occurred: he chose a random bad insult arbitrarily, and chose an uncommon one, and it so happens that one has an anti-semitic history. The combination is what I find implausible.

@Grifter: I apologize, I had not seen your previous comment. You make a lot of sense, calling someone smelly is a conspiciously poor insult. If I were to insult someone, say Ken, in a public forum, it'd be a bottom 5 choice for sure.

Perhaps there's something in Harvard's code of conduct that would restrict their choice of insult (on risk of a harsher punishment)? In light of what you've said, and if their identity is that which has been claimed in this thread, antisemitism is an increasingly likely explanation, but it's good to have an alternative theory as to why they would choose such a lame insult.

When confronted with trying to determine if he's a clumsy anti-Semite or somebody with the interlocutory skills of a not-bright 4th-grader, I come to the conclusion that both answers reflect about equally poorly on his intelligence, fitness to be a lawyer, and the selectiveness of HL's admissions dept.

When confronted with trying to determine if he's a clumsy anti-Semite or somebody with the interlocutory skills of a not-bright 4th-grader, I come to the conclusion that both answers reflect about equally poorly on his intelligence, fitness to be a lawyer, and the selectiveness of HL's admissions dept.

On the contrary, were he an anti-semite, I cannot think of a better choice of insult: It's apparently prevalent enough that people in the know are able to identify it and be hurt by it, but obscure enough that he can plausibly claim that he truly ignored the unfortunate connotations.

The slur he used is one that has been directed at Jews, but it's also been directed against other ethnic groups – I'm aware of it being used against Africans especially, but also south-east Asians. I think it may be less of a stereotype and more of a way of demeaning a subordinated group; as in this case, it doesn't even need to be true to be hurtful. So the question isn't really whether he was aware of the racist history of the insult he used, but whether his outrageous behavior had that extra quality we call outrage. I think it's clear that it did, and it's a pity Harvard wasn't willing to recognise it: it was directed at a representative of the Jewish state; it would not have been directed at a representative of any other state; it is intrinsically racist for that reason.

I think there was a very brief period where this guy was rising to the top of Trump's short list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Crude, obnoxious, inappropriate and ambiguously racist. check, check check and check!

it was directed at a representative of the Jewish state; it would not have been directed at a representative of any other state; it is intrinsically racist for that reason.

It took me some time to puzzle out and organize everything that's wrong with this statement, so kudos on that.

First, I don't believe the premise in bold, whether the "it" you mention refers to being called smelly, or being disrespectful in general. President Bush had shoes thrown at him–if that guy had weaker arms or a few less brain cells, I could easily see him calling Bush smelly instead. A for being insulted or disrespected in general, I've seen representatives of many non-Jewish states–including the leader of the mid-20th century's most conspicuously non-Jewish state–called much worse things.

Second, if this is your definition of "intrinsically racist," you must be a joy to have around at parties.
"Did you just call him 'Reggie'?"
"Yes"
"Would you do that to anyone other than the black guy?"
"Umm, isn't he the only one here named 'Reggie'?"
"Racist."

Screenshots of this student's LinkedIn page (which he has since deleted) have been circulating online. He is currently a third-year law student, and his page had no summer employment listed for 2015.

At elite law schools, students are hired in the fall of their second year for summer internships at large law firms. These summer-associate positions involve lavish meals and activities, relatively little real work, and pay $2500 per week. So, most students at top schools work at private firms during their 2L summers, even if they do not intend to go into Biglaw when they graduate.

There are several reasons why his LinkedIn might not include his summer job:

1. He made the page prior to interviewing in Fall 2014 and had not updated it since.

2. His firm found out what he had done ahead of his identity being publicized and asked him to scrub all mentions of his association with them from his online presence.

3. He didn't do anything during his 2L summer, which is very unusual.

Regardless, if he has a job lined up, there's a good chance his firm is going to rescind its offer of employment, and he'll have a tough time getting hired after this.

So, I think our collective outrage should be tempered by the fact that asking this offensive question is probably gonna cost this guy hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Have people really not heard the anti-Semitic trope of the "smelly Jew" before? It has been around for a very long time, and this kid surely knew it existed. Giving him the benefit of the doubt when his purpose, at best, was to disrupt any actual discussion from taking place by personally insulting the speaker is ridiculous.

A question for the lawsplainers? According to an article I read, Harvard would not name the questioner due "federal privacy laws." Which federal law protects the identity of people asking questions at a recorded public forum?

It took me some time to puzzle out and organize everything that's wrong with this statement, so kudos on that.

It took you some time, *and* you still misunderstood? Well done — I have a vision of you staring intently at the manual for your new refrigerator for a long time, and then putting your milk in the freezer.

The rest of your post consists entirely of imaginary evidence which is, after all, imaginary.

Mr. Husam El-Coolaq comes from a culture where Jew Hatred is the norm and is acceptable. More over, he works for an organization whose intent is deligitimize the only Jewish Nation on earth, Israel. That organization, SJP, also works diligently to intimidate Jews on every campus on which they operate. Husam is just one example of SJP tactics. SJP has no program to help any Arabs in the Middle East whatsoever. Their objective is aligned with Hamas–the destruction of the State of Israel.

Mr. Husam El-Coolaq who is obviously well-educated and extremely intelligent knows what he is doing. In this situation, he may have over-estimated the degree to which the popular anti-Israel sentiment that he sees in private would play out in direct hate speech. It failed. Harvard is still not open to blatant antisemitism. It is an unspoken agreement among progressives to look the other way when Arabs and Muslims express their antisemitic hate. That is exactly what Harvard did in this case–try to cover it up. A teaching moment was lost in the cloud of Politically Correct behavior.

Cover-up does not help young Muslims at a vulnerable age to see that this kind of hate is their problem. It is holding back development of their societies. We Jews have nothing to do with it. It doesn't make me angry–it makes me sad for them. It is time to talk openly about it. The entire generation of Muslims are growing up with this stupid ideology.

Mr. Husam El-Coolaq does NOT deserve a free pass. This was not an adolescent stunt.

He does not convey to me "Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine has things to say and I should listen to them." He conveys "Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine is led by a self-indulgent little douche who richly deserves every excruciating second of the soul-crushing BigLaw job he'll probably get effortlessly because he's a Harvard twerp."

Ken, I love you for making me (yet again) start giggling away at the reference desk.

@El Cid: It's not as obvious to me that Mr. El-Coolaq is very intelligent as it is to you.

Also, as an Israeli Jew, I had completely forgotten about the Smelly Jew trope, but I've come across the smelly Arab, smelly Bedouin, and smelly African tropes any number of times. Have a rest, will you?

It's the student's future at Big Law that worries me. Carelessly undermining his client–the Palestinian cause whatever–so that now this "smelly Jew" business is the legacy of the event. Should be named so as to be avoided by potential clients to protect their interests from dumbassery, not for the purposes of shaming or disciplining.

Despite Harvard's attempted friendly censorship, if you Google this person's name, even if you misspell it, pretty much all you see is articles with headlines like "Harvard Law Anti-Semite Revealed." (Of course, you can also Google "Harvard Law Anti-Semite Revealed" to find the name.)

He's probably set for life if he wants a job at some "Social Justice" or "Justice for Palestine" type of place, but if he's looking for a Big Law or corporate job, I don't think he's getting it.

Funny world we live in. A law student grossly insults a former high government official invited to his school as a guest, and that is completely hunky-dory. No problem, business as usual. But suggest that his insult was rooted in an ethnic insult (which it almost certainly wasn't, smelly Jews? Really?) and he is wandering around in sackcloth and ashes.

Can't think of a reason in the world why the guy shouldn't be publicly identified. Maybe teach some other folks badly in need of a lesson that actions have consequences.

I followed the trackback to the Royal Asses blog. Quite an interesting situation there. Left wing students want the FBI to investigate the conservative blog in order to identify who writes it. One of the people involved in this extra-legal effort is Husam El-Quolaq. It is also alleged that Harvard has tried to identify the blog's authors.

So we have a person who made a public statement at a public event being coddled and protected by Harvard, while Harvard and a group of El-Quolaq's fellow travelers work to uncover the identity of someone wishing to remain anonymous.

These are not your father's leftists. Imagine Abbie Hoffman or Tom Hayden asking the FBI for assistance with suppressing speech.

Search for "Stephanie Grace Harvard" if you need an example of how this jack*ss would have been treated by the HLS administration had he demonstrated racist opinions regarding blacks. Not only would they not have hidden his name…they would have published it themselves! But this guy hates all the right kinds of people, and is a member of the right sort of "hate" groups. (Royall Must Fall, and Reclaim Harvard Law School) It's fascinating, isn't it? Or depressing, but what's the difference these days?

That's because "white people" is code for "the hegemony". This is also the source of the gulf between the definitions of racism –prejudicial bigotry between individuals of differing race vs institutional systemic discrimination where reverse racism is an oxymoron. The key thing to understand about social justice movements is that they seek to redress a power imbalance; all their language comes from that frame and there are often semantic disagreements when they encounter folks who don't share it.